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OFR 2019–1114: Multiple-Well Monitoring Site Adjacent to the Lost

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OFR 2019–1114: Multiple-Well Monitoring Site Adjacent to the Lost Prepared in cooperation with California State Water Resources Control Board Multiple-Well Monitoring Site Adjacent to the Lost Hills Oil Field, Kern County, California The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the California State Study Area Water Resources Control Board, is evaluating several questions about oil and gas The LHSP is in the Kern development and groundwater resources in California, including (1) the location of County subbasin of the San Joaquin groundwater resources; (2) the proximity of oil and gas operations and groundwater and Valley groundwater basin situated the geologic materials between them; (3) evidence for or against fluids from oil and gas on the southern end of the Tulare sources in groundwater; and (4) the pathways or processes responsible when fluids from Lake Hydrologic Region (California oil and gas sources are present in groundwater (U.S. Geological Survey, 2019). As part Department of Water Resources, 2016; of this evaluation, the USGS installed a multiple-well monitoring site in the southern fig. 1). The LHSP is approximately San Joaquin Valley near Lost Hills, California, adjacent to the Lost Hills oil field 1,400 feet (ft) east and downgradient (fig. 1). Data collected at the Lost Hills multiple-well monitoring site (LHSP) provide from the Lost Hills oil and gas field information about the geology, hydrology, geophysics, and geochemistry of the aquifer administrative boundary. system, thus enhancing understanding of relations between adjacent groundwater and Primary water-bearing units that the Lost Hills oil field in an area where there is little groundwater data.This report comprise the major aquifers on the presents construction information for the LHSP and initial geohydrologic data collected west side of the Tulare Lake region from the site. include alluvial and river sediments of Holocene age, older alluvium and Figure 1. Location of Lost Hills multiple-well monitoring well site (LHSP) and selected other terrace deposits of Pleistocene age, wells in relation to the Lost Hills oil field, Kern County, California. and Pliocene-Pleistocene-age Tulare Formation (Woodring, 1940; California Department of Water Resources, 2015). 120° 45' 30' AR C R C EXPLANATION Area of historical produced water storage Oil and gas field administrative boundary 45' County boundary s! Lost Hills multiple-well monitoring site (LHSP) Disposal well 5 33 Injection well s! LHSP Oil and gas production well Plugged or buried well CALIFORNIA 35°37'30" Sacramento Tulare Lake Lost Hills Hydrologic 46 Region Modesto San Joaquin Valley groundwater basin Corcoran Bakersfield Kern County subbasin San Diego Base modified from U.S. Geological Survey and other Federal and State digital data, Oil and gas well data from the California Department of Conservation, 2018. various scales; Albers Equal-Area Conic projection, standard parallels are 29°30’ N. and 45°30’ N.; North American Datum of 1983 0 1 2 3 4 5 MILES 0 1 2 3 4 5 KILOMETERS U.S. Department of the Interior ISSN 2331-1258 (online) Open-File Report 2019–1114 U.S. Geological Survey https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20191114 February 2020.
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